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Historic Overview Proof of human settlements of what is now Saarland reach back to the Old stone age about 100 000 years ago.  In the last centuries before Christ, the Celtic tribes of the Mediomatriker and the Treverer lived in this area.

 After the conquest by the Romans several little province towns were created as well as rural cities, of which some are excavated actually.  To those belongs the archaeological park of Bliesbruck-Rheinheim on both sides of the border.

 During the great human migration the authority of the Romans broke down. After Christianisation, the country on the Saar river belonged to the bishopric of Metz and to the archbishopric of Trier.  From the late middle ages, territories formed which are remembered in the actual coat of arms of the Saarland : in the centre was the land of the count of Nassau-Saarbrücken.  From various directions extended, from the exterior to the inside of the actual Saarland, the Electorate of Trier, the duchy of Pfalz-Zweibrücken and the duchy of Lorraine. Between them there still were some littler territories.  In the 16th century the Reformation was introduced in Nassau-Saarbrücken and in Pfalz-Zweibrücken. 

From 1680 to 1697, France created, in the frame of the Reunion, a Saar province with the little territories. Following the French Revolution, the dukes were driven out in 1793 and the whole left riverbank of the Rhine was annexed to France. 

After the Congress of Vienna the actual Saarland went to the kingdoms of Prussia and Bavaria and to some littler States of the German Alliance.  The gains of the French Revolution stayed as Rhenish right.  After a beginning in the 18th century, the coal mining and steel and iron industries developed. 

After the French-German war of 1870/71 and the battle of Spicheren at the gates in front of Saarbrücken, the foundation of the German Empire and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine brought the formation of a common economic area going till the French border.  On the Saar river evolved the centre of the third biggest heavy industry area of the German Empire.

After the German defeat in World War I the Saar area was separated from the German Empire through the peace treaty of Versailles and put under a governing commission of the Society of Nations.  For the first time the Saar area formed an administrative unity of its own.  France had wanted an annexation; but received only the propriety of the coal mines and thus a strong economic influence.  

At the popular referendum of January 13th 1935 the population voted at more than 90% for going back to the German Empire even with the nazi government there.  World War II brought a new annexation of the Mosel department including also the palatinate.